Role Play Challenge: Alexander Greek God of War III

[Maestro_Innit]

Hmmm... tough choice.

To be honest, I'm sure it all boils down to a simple question. "Do you want to take out Gilgamesh sooner or much later?" If you want to leave him til later, then get the stone + copper and build like mad for an excellent SE. If you want to take him out early then I see you have no choice but to leggit for him now! Settle 1N of the southern copper to prevent him grabbing it and rush him with early bronze units when he has no counter. If you let him get copper then he has strong units, if you leave him 'til elephants then he'll also have elephants so it'll be tough.

Personally, I'd go for the copper / stone and build ... but I'm a . .. .. .. .. .

 

[Xurr]

Hmmm... tough choice.

To be honest, I'm sure it all boils down to a simple question. "Do you want to take out Gilgamesh sooner or much later?" If you want to leave him til later, then get the stone + copper and build like mad for an excellent SE. If you want to take him out early then I see you have no choice but to leggit for him now! Settle 1N of the southern copper to prevent him grabbing it and rush him with early bronze units when he has no counter. If you let him get copper then he has strong units, if you leave him 'til elephants then he'll also have elephants so it'll be tough.

Personally, I'd go for the copper / stone and build ... but I'm a . .. .. .. .. .

1N1W of the copper puts the city on the river for +2 , which will help with all that jungle.

 

[madscientist]

I am actually thinking of city #3 going directly ontop of the copper thus preventing a cultural loss of it. Most likely Gilg get's there first, so I would settle to claim the western wheat/cows.

Also I may have AH by the third settler, so horse acess may be vital for attacking GILG, Vultures are succeptible to chariots.

 

[IagoAlberto]

I still think the best strategy is going for the pyramids while building enough military to attack gilga soonish. However, from the rpc aspect of this, we all know hat a jerk Alex is and what is the jerkiest thing to do? Settle right on top of gilga's copper!

 

[madscientist]

I still think the best strategy is going for the pyramids while building enough military to attack gilga soonish. However, from the rpc aspect of this, we all know hat a jerk Alex is and what is the jerkiest thing to do? Settle right on top of gilga's copper!

There you go, now you have the spirit of the RPC!

 

[Groogaroo]

I am actually thinking of city #3 going directly ontop of the copper thus preventing a cultural loss of it. Most likely Gilg get's there first, so I would settle to claim the western wheat/cows.

Hmmm... I'm getting a strange sense of De ja vu here. Didn't you settle on Giglameshes Iron in your first ever RPC as Gengis Khan?

You made pretty short work him then. I think Giglamesh is destined to get trashed in your RPC's.

 

[madscientist]

To be honest it all depends how pissedoff I amcommuting home from Manhatten tonight. If it's a 2 hour drive then Gilgamesh is toast. If it's reasonable, perhaps I'll play a little smarter. But it does look like rain

 

[Pe Ell]

Hmmm... I'm getting a strange sense of De ja vu here. Didn't you settle on Giglameshes Iron in your first ever RPC as Gengis Khan?

You made pretty short work him then. I think Giglamesh is destined to get trashed in your RPC's.

Good thing too. I really hate that guy. Settling on that copper is probably the only way to get it right now due to gilga being creative and all.

 

[Melon Head]

All good advice!

A few clarifications, police state is preferred but not required. Vassalage and theocracy are required.

Stone with a Phil leader seams like a no brainer for Pyramids. With so much food in teh capital I think it's foolish to not try and get the pyramids for a solid SE.

Al is aggressive. so his Phalynx which can start with Shock beat Summerian Vultures plus are not succeptible to chariots. Remember Jumbos take a long time to tech but they are one of the few counters to Roamn Prats.

As far as the leaders, I agree they are all very tough and well spread out as far as abilities. Three creative leaders and 2 protective make them tough nuts to crack. Suliman REX's well with Imperialistic and uses the Phil trait very well. The icing is one War-monger who can mess things up.

I think an early rush of GILG while building the Pyramids is realistic. But I think teh key will be how the religious aspects play out and who Khan hits first.

Good to hear about rep being reasonable. in that case, I retract my warnings about the pyramids. Snag the copper/cows/stone city, chop a monument asap to get stone for 'mids, and build phalanxes there to capture an AI capitol (raze non-capitol cities to keep your econ afloat) and use the SE w/ rep. to keep your economy afloat. Rep + caste system + philosophical is fantastic. Take out one AI with phalanxes (just the capitol, remember; raze/peace treaty the rest) and a second AI capitol with cats (keep it quick - all you want is more expansion, not an elaborate war, not their whole empire). Then go pacifism and reap fantastic rewards with Rep, caste, phil, pacifist. Couple that with a ridiculous food capitol and a couple of AI capitols that tend to have lots of food, and you'll be off to a lightning middle game. On the economy front, a merchant under rep gets as much science as a scientist normally, and the GP pollution doesn't matter if it's not in your GP farm, adn besides GM's aren't so bad.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Al, the God of War, running pacifism? Are you INSANE!!!!

 

[grandad1982]

Yer the troop costs of pacifism, when going for a conquest could be huge, not to mention theocracy MUST be adopted.

 

[CivCorpse]

Settle a few cities before deciding who to take out first. See some more land and what the Ai has available. Getting the stone early pretty much dictates settling near the northern copper first. Preferably 1w of the cooper so you can access it right away. Keep in mind that if you are unsuccessful attacking gilgamesh then you will be dealing with considerable cultural pressure and you will have allowed the chinese to get established and have a better chance of chokonus. Settle a couple cities then look at your options. By the time you have built the mids, you should have about 12 phalanxes as a start on your army of invasion.
One other item to consider. If you delay attacking giggles, there is a good chance you will be taking cities with courthouses already built, since he will probably start them much sooner.

 

[NintendoTogepi]

Seems like it's going good so far....

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I've just read the RPC bullpen update, sounds like it aint going that great... I await the next update with interest.

 

[madscientist]

Alexander, Greek God of War: Part II

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We just cannot catch a break with this guy! Not a disaster, but we are so far behind in tech again with a shambles economy and the world hating us (OK, maybe justifiably so). But I think you all will be pleased, as AL does what Al does best, unpopular wars!!!

No to the game, comeone build the Pyramids??? This is the damned god or War. Time to get to work!!!!

First we settled ontop of the hill that nabs us stone, cows, and copper. We start the monument right away, and build a road to it.

We send our warrior past the twin peaks to find



China is pretty close.

And then a plain old insult to Greek power.



Right in our backyard. No way Al can accept that!!!!

As you can see after masonsry we went AH, but luck with horses nearby although off course Khan and Qin have them.



Now before we go nuts I rationally checked the NW to see if we can settle that direction.



OK, that's decided.

We teched agriculture and then pottery next. An settled our third city.



Yep, blocked out GILG. Now this was a brilliant move by Al except



OK, so Gilgy has rion hooked up already. Still we stopped Gilg's expansion that way and have stayed at peace with him.

We ramp up our Phalynx stack with a few spears (now why on earth did I build spears, stupid!!!)



And soon



Protective doesn't mean much for a desert city!

We also teched writing and went after Math. By the end of the round we still have no math!!!

Now the city is badly placed, but I want to take a stand against the Chinese here. It assures us of the stone and is a decent enough city although I would have preferred to be on the river.

The fun starts here because



Noiw I deliberately held off adopting hinduism to avoid this, oh well we never saw any Ethiopian troops.

However, this is interesting the Chinese horse city. Al is very eager and launches an all out attack expecting to take the city



OOPS! City never got above 1 pop or grew in culture so it autorazed. Sorry Qin, wasn't intentional.

So somewhere along the road we got peace with Zara and Qin.



We switched to Hinduism to try and cater a bit to Khan, and we are quickly rewarded for it.



Friggin moron Mongol!!!! We he must not have open borders with Gilgamesh as I never saw a mongol unit. We stayed at war a good while (Ghengis is good at this) and he took peace for mysticism. Why give into Khan, well because of



Yes the founder of Hinduism felt there were way too many Hindu leaders in the world. That's it, he SE of Corinth, time to show some Greek power. We send our stack in that direction hoping Qin (who has iron and horses) licks his wounds a bit more.



This city is actually manned by 1 archer, 1 sword, 1 axe.



We kept it for the Jumbos and gold. I was planning to sit tight here and get peace, but I explored a little more into Ottoman lands to pillage for some cash.



Well, Welll, Well. The hindu holy city, Ottoman capital with only 2 defenders. He must NOT be in slavery because he did no crack the whip in defense.



Yes we kept the city but no the shrine has not been built yet (stupid Ottoman). So I saved here.

Here's a bigger view



And the techs



Suliman will accept peace right now for a 10 turn treay. I think we take it and resurrect our economy, we have a large treasury at the moment.

SO we ended up at war with 4 of the 6 AIs by 950 BC, how's that for the God of War

So the questions are where do we go?

I say we whip like crazy to get some libraries. Pyramids are still open, 69 turns on marathon. I say we shoot for them, we can always use the cash if we are beaten to them..

Once I finally tech math, do we go construction for cats? I am thinking self defense for now. Then HBR? Or do we work on the economy and go after curency right away.

All Hail Alex, god or War but wimp at finances!!!!!

 

[paulthebug]

Good round MS! Tha'ts the spirit, fight & fight & fight!

I can't see clearly from the minimap, but I presume it is only Gilga on your southwest? I say make him friendly and fight Qin & Sully. Sully's land looks pretty good, with gold, horsey, wine, floodplain, etc. I would say make him the priority.

Back to Gilga, I think as long as you have some decent defense on Corinth, you can withstand his army if he back stab. I think Phalax is 100% malee, is it? Also don't forget to chop the 2 forests across Corinth's river.

I really prefer you not to waste hammer building pyramid. I have a feeling that you can get it free at Beijing.

Can't plan further along, map not clear. In short: (i) give in to Gilga but be prepare for backstab, (ii) finish off Sully, (iii) get pyramid in Beijing.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Ouch, most games it'd have been game over for me, getting dogpiled like that.


Good job. Those morons actually did you a favor, being kind of enough to build your settlers for you, and you picked up some nice resources. Don't worry about the tech situation. You're more than fine considering it's so earl.

Can you take any more of suleiman's cities easily? If it's at all possible it might be good to get him out of the way right now. You can destroy him without having suffered the -1 you declared war on our friend penalty from the othe r hindus.

 

[Melon Head]

Good work on fighting; capturing the holy city is excellent.

I think you need to focus on economy asap! You need caste system above all else. Beeline there immediately. If you can get Pyramids that would also be great; 69 turns on marathon is lightning-quick. Plus, if you can chop some forests that would help. Even if you fail, you'll still get enough cash to sustain research for a little while.

After pyramids/CoL you have a choice to make. Do you want to tech for a while with your awesome SE, grabbing pacifism and liberalism then turning to rifling or gunpowder to expand again, or do you want to use Caste to run rep. merchants to support your economy while you tech construction/engineering and use an elephant/cat/treb army to expand again?

Given this is Al, I'd go with the elephant/cat/treb army. Just make sure you devote a turnset to rebuilding your crippled economy. Remember the SE you're planning on running is absolutely perfect for the hole you're in. It excels at beelining techs and trading them to get back to tech parity. Reference some of Aelf's old EMC/IMC games for examples.

I'm not sure how the diplomacy got so far out of hand. Is there a way you can butter up a few AI's? Give in to all of their demands, gift them resources (gifting an AI a fish resource for a while until you can trade it for one of their resources is entirely worth it for the +diplo "You supplied us with resources").

 

[Groogaroo]

Is there a way you can butter up a few AI's? Give in to all of their demands,

AL... God of war... Give in to demands.

It looks like the AI seriously have it in for AL on this game, but you've done well out of the warring so far. Hopefully if AL has sated his bloodlust for the time bieng he might let you spend a few turns building the economy.

But just a few turns mind

If you still have a shot at the Mids, go for it. If you miss them then atleast you have some war booty from the converted hammers.

 

[madscientist]

Thanks All. A few folow up items.

Ghengis is to the west of Gilgamesh which expains why I didn't see any mongol units. Probaby lack of OB. Qin is directly east and cramped, Suliman is SE and is split in half now. Bot Zara and Agustus are much further east.

After considering I think libraries everywhere, roads to connect newly acquired Turkish lands, more military, and Pyramids in Athens.

I am considering revolting into no state religion again. I need to get at least Gilgamesh on my side.

I think Qin and Suliman are the first 2 to go down, preferably before the middle ages.

Tech I think currency next which I can trade if anyone likes me enough, then construction and HBR. Let's see if I can get CoL in a trade.